gether if properly arranged. The
carter said the horses' hoofs were not sharpened; and another said that
they couldn't go on threshing by sixes, but at most by fours, and would
never get done. Uli said nothing.

Finally, when Joggeli had no further answers to give, and was out-talked
by the servants, he said to Uli, "Well, what do you think?"

"If the master orders it's got to be done," answered Uli. "Hans, the
carter, and I will bring the wood in, and if the milker helps in the
threshing and the others help him with fodder and manure, the threshing
won't suffer." "All right, do it so," said Joggeli, and went out.

Now the storm broke over Uli's head, first in single peals, then in
whole batteries of thunder. The carter swore he wouldn't go into the
woods; the milker swore he wouldn't touch a flail; the others swore they
wouldn't thresh by fours. They wouldn't be howled at; annoyed; they
weren't dogs; they knew what was customary, etc. But they knew where all
this came from, and he had better look out for himself if he was going
to have the evening bells ring at six here (in the winter three o'clock
is the hour, six in summer). Many a fellow had come along like a
district governor, and then had had to make tracks like a beaten hound.
It was a bad sort of fellow who got his fellow-servants into trouble in
order to put the master's eyes out. But they would soon give such a
fellow enough of it. Uli said little in reply, only that the master's
orders had to be carried out. The master had ordered, not he, and if
none of them got off worse than he they ought to thank God for it. He
wasn't going to torment anybody, but he wouldn't be tormented either; he
had no cause to fear any of them. Then he told the mistress to be kind
enough to put up lunch for three, for they would scarcely come back from
the woods to dinner.

The next morning they went out into the woods. Much as the carter
growled and cursed, he had to go along. The milker would not thresh and
the master did not appear. Then the mistress plucked up courage and went
out and said that she thought he needn't be too high and mighty to
thresh; better folks than he had threshed before now. They couldn't
afford to pay a milker who wanted to dry his teeth in the sun all the
morning. So the wood was brought in, they scarcely knew how; and in
February weather and roads were so bad that they would have had a hard
time with the wood.

Hard as Uli had worked outside (and he h